why i chose islam | why islam | about islam -1

M. Emery From issues : Islamic Propagation Office in Rabwah

Introduction O seeker of truth, if you really seek the truth put aside all preconceived notions, and open your heart…do not let others judge or make a decision for you. This being said, I would like to share with you this beautiful account of a man’s journey to the truth…I believe it be best if he narrates his account to us himself, so I will leave you with Mr. Thomas…

I was born to staunch Catholic Christian parents. Even from my youngest days, my father sometimes took me along with him when he went to preach, it was quite obvious that he wanted me to succeed him in his profession. By the time I reached grade twelve, I could preach the Gospels in my own way. In college, I often met my Protestant classmates and discussed the differences in our faiths and the performance of rituals. By the time I completed the first year in college, I was sufficiently grounded in the knowledge of the Christian Faith as held by the Catholic Church. I was given a scholarship from the Church funds and in return for the help I received, I was required to receive special coaching in understanding parts of the Holy Book, under the Chief Priest of the Church who loved to teach me very much and was very intimately attached to me. Having appeared in the first group for my intermediate course I used to sit working at his subjects till late at night. One night when all were asleep and I was absorbed in my studies an idea suddenly struck my mind to examine the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, the basic formula of the Christian Faith. The question how god exwww. ists in three persons, and yet has a single divine nature, a single will and be of one substance arose in my mind. My failure to reconcile my belief in the Trinity with the reasoning of the science of logic, created a mental restlessness in me. Days passed on and many a time, I thought of asking my father to help me in solving the problem which puzzled my mind but I knew that my father would never appreciate the least doubt in the dogmatic belief of the Catholic School. However, one day when I found my father in a happy mood and asked him to explain the Holy Trinity…he finally said: “In matters of faith one has to stop reasoning…this doctrine is beyond the grasp of human reason. One should believe in the doctrine only by one’s heart and mind!” This reply from my father upset me to a great extent… all my thinking got centered in the question which had become a definite problem to puzzle my mind further and I wondered saying: “Is this the foundation upon which the huge edifice of the Christian faith is built? Is the basis of my faith only a matter of blind following of some dictated belief which can never stand reasoning or the independent scrutiny by the dispassionate and impartial arguments from the clean conscience?” I became extremely worried and made up my mind to blindly believe in the Trinity. One day one of our senior lecturers was sitting alone in his room and I entered with his permission and asked him if he could help me to solve something which to me was a perplexing problem. He very kindly asked me what it was. I asked him to explain to me how God, a single being, can exist simultaneously as three distinct persons: the Father, the Son (Jesus), and the Holy Spirit?! The senior lecturer smiled and said: “Is it that you do not like my stay in this college?” I asked him: “Why sir?” He said: “What do you think the college authorities who are staunch Catholics will do with me, if someone informs them that I discuss in my private room things opposed to the Christian faith in general? Will they keep me on the staff of the College any longer? If you want to discuss anything here, you must confine your discussion to the subject of your studies in the College!” Thereafter, I made an appointment with him to see him in his house. On Sunday when I met the senior lecturer he first asked me as to what made me inquire into the Doctrine of Trinity. I said that I wanted to know how far the doctrine stood to reasoning. He smiled and said, “Why don’t you ask any one of our priests?” I said: “I have asked them but they say it is a matter of belief or faith and it should not be subjected to any logic or philosophy. This has upset me. This has raised the question in me, if what I believe in is unreasonable and illogical, why should I subject myself to any blind following? Is God so unjust to expect man to believe in a doctrine about Himself which no human brain can ever reasonably conceive? I request you, Sir, to somehow give me some method of arguing out the possibility of such existence as the doctrine of Trinity wants us to believe in!” The senior lecturer smiled and said: ‘Dear Thomas, suppose you want me to prove by some mathematical formula how water can remain water and the same time be fire, or how a stone can be a stone and at the same time be water too, how can I do it? I do not think any sensible man on earth can ever conceive such a possibility… how the Ever living God who being the Ever living, can also at the same time be a mortal! (i.e. be a man to suffer death at the hands of the other mortals?) And how the same mortal being at the same time be the Absolute Immortal God? It is a problem which our priests want us to believe and we have to merely believe in it and none has any choice of even questioning the practicability of this inconceivable dogma.’ He went on saying: “The fact is when God, Whom we believe as One, is absolutely One, it means that God is singularly One in natural essence of His existence, free from any different or variant factors having anything to do with His pure or Absolute Unity to justify His being the Absolute One, owing an indivisible existence, by Himself. Division suggests that the One is not an Absolute One but a compound of some variants and that which is a composed being can never really be One in the true meaning of Oneness. And certainly the one dependent in its existence upon its different components can never be independent in its action, whereas God is the Absolute One, independently Omnipotent in His Will and His action. Besides how can any three which are three separate beings, with three variations justify being three separate entities, remain three separately individual native properties differentiating them from each other, and become conceivably the absolute indivisible one, without the least variation in the essential oneness? An absolute one must be totally independent in its existence, Mr. Thomas…it is impossible to reason out the doctrine of the Holy Trinity for it is an inconceivable human riddle!” He continued: ‘The only thing is that we Christians are shut out of the vast sources of knowledge about the truth and of the higher factor in matters of religion which are available outside our own fold, by damning every non‐ Christian as the Devil’s work. We Christians, Mr. Thomas, in our madness to swell up our ranks have played such a disgraceful role that a scholar like Sir Dennison Ross had to helplessly disclose truth about this in his foreword to the translation of the Quran by George Sale.” I was amazed to hear the arguments of the senior lecturer who was himself known as a Catholic, and at the same time I was very much encouraged to know that my doubt about the unreasonableness of the doctrine of Trinity was something which had made a highly educated and enlightened mind like the senior lecturer of Mathematics to enquire into it. I was much benefited by the discussion with the senior lecturer for I came to know arguments justifying the doubt created in my mind. My study of the matter in the ‘Islamic Literature’ and the translation of the Quran opened my eyes to many great and very important factors that effect human life on earth. Once I visited the senior lecturer in his house and to my amazement I found him possessing a great amount of literature on Islam! I further asked him: “May I know sir, if you have embraced the faith of the Muslims?” He replied: “Do not worry yourself about my personal choice!” I took the copy of the translation of the Quran by George Sale and read the introduction by Sir E. Dennison Ross. The introduction needs to be read with special attention. Sir Ross said: “For many centuries the acquaintance which the majority of Europeans possessed of Mohammedanism was based almost entirely on the distorted reports of fanatical Christians which led to the discrimination of a multitude of gross calumnies. What was good in Mohammedanism was entirely ignored and what was not good in the eyes of Europe was exaggerated or misinterpreted. The unity of God and the simplicity of his creed was probably a more potent factor in the spread of Islam than the sword of the ghaziz.” (G. Sale’s translation of the Koran – Introduction) This statement of the great Christian scholar of international repute, created in me the thirst to know the original teachings of Islam especially about the Islamic concept of God. About four years passed away and by this time I knew the contents of the Quran. Many things had aroused my attention. I had discussed many doubtful points with the senior lecturer whom I found to have read the Quran several times with a better and more critical view. I was now longing to meet some Muslim scholar to cross examine him about certain doubts about the Islamic Faith. Once I thought of Hinduism but what I saw daily with my own eyes, curses of untouchability and the reservations of the caste system prevalent before us and besides everything else, the idol worship and the observance of innumerable rituals did not prompt me to take up any enquiry into its tenets. I could never understand the superiority exclusively and arbitrarily claimed for the members of certain castes, simply because they had accidentally been born in those folds. I had seen with my own eyes how the people belonging to certain castes are imagined as lower in the society and are treated as the untouchables, not allowed even to enter into the Hindu Temples. I had seen these poor souls being prohibited even to take drinking water from the wells reserved for the superior classes.